Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1993

The Curator for a New Religious Art Exhibit is a Nonbeliever

You can’t appreciate art history without recognizing how many of the classical works were religious in nature. That’s partly because religion provides ample and universal material and partly because of the types of people funding the pieces.

The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City has a new exhibit called “Miracles in Miniature: The Art of the Master of Claude de France,” which is almost entirely religious in nature, and here’s the kicker: The exhibit’s curator, Roger S. Wieck, isn’t religious at all.

Still, he says, that doesn’t stop him from appreciating great art:

Indeed, Wieck knows the ins and outs of liturgy and the stories of the Old and New Testaments better than many believers. And, clearly, he doesn’t think a lack of belief should lessen interest in devotional art. “I don’t understand why people would be put off by religious subject matter,” he says. In medieval and Renaissance times, most art was religious. Some of the greatest works by the greatest artists of all times, from Michelangelo to Rembrandt to Titian, evince religious themes.

I wonder if any atheists, especially those who sing classical religious music or who study religious art, have a different opinion? Do you appreciate the great art for what it is, or are you put off by the nature of the content?

(Thanks to Brian for the link)

Ten Helpful Tips for Atheists and Believers in Relationships

The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses 10 ways to make relationships between atheists and believers work:

The list comes from Dale McGowan‘s forthcoming book In Faith and In Doubt. These mixed-faith relationships don’t always work out, though! Check out this video to see the nine warning signs that your relationship is in trouble.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the project — more videos will be posted soon — and we’d also appreciate your suggestions as to which questions we ought to tackle next!

And if you like what you’re seeing, please consider supporting this site on Patreon.

Omaha Atheists Revealed to Be Non-Satan Worshipping

Photo by Adam Klinker,

Examples of Pseudoscience You May Have Forgotten to Be Angry About

Some woo just needs to die. Esther Inglis-Arkell at io9 rounds up ten particular examples of nonsense and pseudoscientific beliefs that have overstayed their welcome.

A few of them will be some of the greatest hits you’d expect, like vaccines and autism, homeopathy, and the Chopra-esque quantum-this, quantum-that.

Others were useful reminders that elicited an “oh yeah, that is a bunch of bullshit” from me, such as “baby genius” programs that purport to spark a kids’ mushy brains at infancy into superintelligence by way of Mozart in the womb and whatnot, or the idea that we can have memories of places and events etched into our DNA. (“We’re not salmon,” she reminds us.)

But by far my favorite was her (spoiler!) number one pick, ”Toxins”:

Here is a definition for a “toxin”: It’s a mysterious bad thing that’s in all the stuff I don’t like. I don’t know what it actually looks like, or its chemical composition. I don’t know exactly how it’s produced. I don’t know the precise process it sets off in the body. I only know that it definitely, definitely causes the awful thing that I always thought would, and indeed should, happen to people doing stuff I don’t like.

We need to step on the idea of “toxins.” We need to step on it until it’s dead. We’re not going stop people from blasting woo at us any time we eat anything that’s not kale or live anywhere that’s not the windswept peak of a mountain, but with concerted effort, we can at least make them sound ridiculous when they do it.

Which is hard! Because “toxins” jargon is everywhere. It sounds totally reasonable when  you don’t know any better, and plays on totally understandable fears consumers have of putting Bad Things into and on their bodies. But it’s too powerful a word to be used in such a blanket fashion. If something is called a toxin, it better be because it’s freaking toxic, not just polysyllabic.

Image via Shutterstock.

Russian Religious Groups Seek Ban on ‘Blasphemous’ Marilyn Manson

Apparently in Russia it’s 1996 all over again, as conservative religious groups are seeking to ban performances by that new, cutting-edge act, Marilyn Manson.

The source of the complaint seems to be the Russian Orthodox organization God’s Will (that’s not an arrogant name for your group), who are imploring Moscow’s mayor to cancel Manson’s show because of the performer’s “blasphemous” material, according to the Moscow Times.

The organization also said Manson’s performances were “full of elements insulting to the feelings of believers” and promoted “religious hatred, cruelty, murder, suicide, sexual perversion and Satanism among young people, including minors.”

Wow, that’s a lot to pack into one show!

Unlike when the legitimately disruptive band Pussy Riot was arrested, Russia now has a real blasphemy law that could theoretically be enforced against Manson. The only chance to nab him, though, would be for his Moscow show, as other Russian cities where he’s scheduled to tour have already cancelled on him.

Folks in the city of Novosibirsk were apparently afraid for their safety should Manson show up (what, was he going to run loose and attack people in the streets?), and got organized:

On June 11, 400 residents of Novosibirsk demonstrated against Manson’s planned visit to the city. The participants in the protest handed out St. George ribbons, held icons and carried posters with the inscription “Say no to Uncle Manson,” Lenta.ru reported.

“Uncle Manson”?

I presume their next move will be to ban the Macarena, and demand Alanis Morissette explain the lyrics to “Ironic.”

So You’ve Left Islam… How Do You Come Out to Family and Friends?

Imtiaz Shams used to be a Muslim. He’s not anymore, and now he wants to help others who have left Islam but don’t quite know where to go from there.

In the second video of his trilogy, he focuses on how to come out to your family and friends:

You can see the first video in the series here. Keep watching his channel for more. And, of course, check out the Ex-Muslims of North America’s website for even more resources.

New York State Senator Rages about Satan, Makes Things Up at March for Marriage

In my post about the March for Marriage, I wondered what kind of person it must take to have the wellspring of loathing and hatred to go to all the trouble to attend and express unbridled enthusiasm for such an event. Here’s one answer, a guy like this.

This here, found via Right Wing Watch, is a New York state senator by the name of Rubin Diaz, and a Democrat who has long been vociferously against same-sex marriage. But wow. Opposition is one thing, but to preach his case to the choir, he jumps many large sharks.

Click here to view the embedded video.

He’s delivering his remarks in Spanish, but the extremely enthusiastic translation makes clear, he’s got some troubling ideas about what the hell is going on. For example, he seems to think that none of the states that have legalized same-sex marriage did so by legislation or popular vote (obviously not true), that the Greece v. Galloway decision cleared the way for “prayer in public places” generally (not true, it was about things like legislatures and city councils), and, best of all, that when it became unconstitutional to lead prayers in public schools, “Satan went into the schools.” I never saw him there in my public education, but, you know, some of those bullies were pretty bad.

Blah blah blah, the people will stop same-sex marriage, etc., etc. Way to go, New York’s 32nd Senate District for picking this guy!

Administration Getting Heat for Public Funds Going to Religious Groups That Discriminate in Hiring

President Obama signs in his version of “faith-based initiatives” in 2009

The Obama administration has disappointed secular activists on many an occasion (and, to be fair, it’s also done right by us here and there), but there’s probably no more overt snubbing of the secular agenda, such as it is, than the president’s failure to act on this infamous campaign promise from 2008 regarding “faith-based initiatives,” which I like to think of as “Zanesvillegate.” (No one else calls it this.) Let’s all say it together:

If you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of their religion. Federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples and mosques can only be used on secular programs.

But the practice of discrimination in hiring still goes on without the administration doing a thing about it, all these years (and all of our complaints) later.

Last week, a huge coalition of 90 groups, including my own, the Center for Inquiry, signed on to a letter that aimed at a narrower example of this kind of abuse of federal funds. Recently unearthed is a 2007 Bush administration Justice Department memo that says, explicitly, that religious organizations getting federal money, in this case as part of the funds available through the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), can in fact prefer “co-religionists” in hiring and firing. That memo remains as a rule in effect to this day.

Especially galling is that this very subject, whether the VAWA funds could be used by groups who still want to discriminate based on religion, was specifically debated by Congress, and VAWA was passed with a prohibition on such discrimination. But the Bush-era memo is being used to override that part of the law.

So a good question is “why?” Who does the Obama administration still need to mollify by leaving this intact? So far, they’re not saying.

 

Making #TwitterTheocracy about Pakistan and Blasphemy Laws

Secular organizations came together last week to support a campaign (going by “#TwitterTheocracy”) that addressed Twitter’s compliance with Pakistan’s request to censor “blasphemous” tweets and Twitter accounts. Or, that’s one way to phrase it. Another might be that secular organizations came together to address the fact that Pakistan was demanding that Twitter censor certain material and block certain users under the aegis of its blasphemy law.

See the difference? One version makes Twitter the campaign’s target. The other makes Pakistan the target. As communications director at the Center for Inquiry, one of the groups that led the campaign (our policy guy Michael De Dora wrote the letter to Pakistan that all the groups signed on to), I saw that the among the several groups involved in the campaign, these two distinct understandings of precisely what we were trying to accomplish existed. Some, if not most folks taking part focused their attention and their tweets on Twitter for agreeing to censor the content, while we at CFI focused on Pakistan, and left Twitter mostly alone.

I wrote about why in a post at the CFI blog, and rather than re-write it, I thought I’d take this opportunity, where I’m subbing for Hemant as your friendly atheist for a few days, to quote the meat of the piece. I compared Twitter’s dilemma to that of Google’s when it opened up shop in China under a lot of restrictions that angered free expression advocates:

Twitter likely saw this kind of compliance as a price of being able to do business and make its service available in Pakistan and other parts of the Muslim world. It was only weeks ago that Turkey’s Prime Minister was threatening to “eradicate” Twitter!

I also note how Twitter did not try to hide the fact that it was censoring material at the behest of Pakistan:

While complying with Pakistan’s censorship requests, Twitter reported each incident to the website ChillingEffects.org, offering a degree of transparency to the rest of the world as to what it was being compelled to do.

A few days ago, Twitter decided to unlock those accounts and reveal the censored content again. That’s great! But the choice that faced Twitter when it first blocked the content, and when it reversed itself, was and is a very difficult one: whether to block some content in Pakistan, or risk being shut out of the country entirely. I wrote:

While [being shut out of Pakistan] would be bad for Twitter, it would also be pretty bad for people in Pakistan who use Twitter as a prime engine for communication, activism, and dissent. So as with Google in China, which is better? A censored Twitter in Pakistan, or no Twitter in Pakistan?

Perhaps no one will have to make that choice, and Pakistan will find it more valuable to allow Twitter to operate as it should without restriction. That’s the outcome we at CFI are working toward, which is why we decided not to pile on Twitter during the #TwitterTheocracy campaign, but instead focus our ire on Pakistan and its censorship and blasphemy laws.

This is not to let Twitter itself off the hook, for as I note in the piece, they have to answer for whatever choice they make, no matter how difficult that choice is. So it’s important to note that neither I nor CFI think the other groups and individuals who concentrated their efforts on Twitter were wrong to do so.

Just see the images to the right, one made by CFI’s close friends allies at the International Humanist and Ethical Union on top, and below that one from us. IHEU’s, which is awesome, focuses on Twitter’s actions, ours on Pakistan’s. On its website, IHEU encourages folks to “speak up about how Twitter has chosen to side with theocratic regimes instead of those who are trying to resist those regimes.” That’s damning of Twitter, and pretty damned compelling.

But at the same time, we also think that Twitter’s actions, whether they’re craven or principled or defensive, were one more tragic result of a greater threat to free expression: Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. They’re simply wrong, and they need to change.

The People Who Are Most Militant About Using Up Fossil Fuels…

Thanks, Ricky!

You can find this image and many others like it on the Friendly Atheist Facebook page!